Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/189

 Rh Guleesh was ready to die with satisfaction and delight. Then they brought her food, and she eat with a good appetite, and was merry and joyous, and never left off talking with the priest while she was eating.

After that Guleesh went home to his house, and stretched himself on the bed and fell asleep again, for the force of the herb was not all spent, and he passed another day and a night sleeping. When he woke up he went back to the priest's house, and found that the young lady was in the same state, and that she was asleep almost since the time that he left the house.

He went into her chamber with the priest, and they remained watching beside her till she awoke the second time, and she had her talk as well as ever, and Guleesh was greatly rejoiced. The priest put food on the table again, and they eat together, and Guleesh used after that to come to the house from day to day, and the friendship that was between him and the king's daughter increased, because she had no one to speak to except Guleesh and the priest, and she liked Guleesh best.

He had to tell her the way he was standing by the rath when the good people came, and how he went in to the Pope, and how the sheehogue blew fire out of his mouth, and every other thing that he did till the time the good people whipt her off with themselves; and when it would be all told he would have to begin it again out of the new, and she never was tired listening to him.

When they had been that way for another half year, she said that she could wait no longer without going back to her father and mother; that she was certain that they were greatly grieved for her; and that it was a shame for her to leave them in grief, when it was in her power to go as far as them. The priest did all he